


Peacocks

by coloredink



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Conversations, F/F, Missing Scene, Pregnancy, Relationship(s), Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-27 07:45:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6275734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coloredink/pseuds/coloredink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Is it selfish?" Margot asked.  They were nestled in bed together, white sheets rucked up around them like clouds, Margot's hand on Alana's belly, just under her navel.  They hadn't made any announcement.  Unlucky, before the end of the first trimester.</p><p>"Usually people say that <i>not</i> having children is selfish," Alana replied.  "Because you want a career, or to travel, and to not have to worry about someone else's needs and wants for a decade and a half."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peacocks

The peacocks didn't seem to be afraid of humans. Actually, they didn't seem to notice that humans existed. They looked straight through Alana as if she were a ghost, and if she got within three feet that was when they would start to move away in a leisurely, unconcerned stalk.

Applesauce, however, loved them. She bounded toward them with tongue lolling out in doggy ecstasy, and the birds scattered like chaff in the wind. Alana had to whistle several times and finally hold up a piece of cheese before Applesauce came back, throwing herself down on her haunches and staring at the cheese.

"Keep that up and the peacocks will stop coming around," she said, clipping Applesauce's leash on while she gobbled down the morsel. "Although, well, maybe Margot wouldn't mind that. They _are_ really stupid birds, and maybe she thinks they're a pest."

Applesauce gazed off in the direction where the peacocks had fled and sighed. She followed Alana at a docile walk.

"I won't be able to take you for these kinds of long walks or runs much longer," Alana said. "And then I'll be busy for a good long while, too. We could probably hire a dog walker. Or you could just walk around that gigantic house; that seems like it'd be good exercise for you."

The house was too large for Applesauce. For that matter, it was too large even for Alana, who was accustomed to the square footage commensurate to the upper middle and upper class--the Verger estate was just on another level. And Applesauce wasn't one of those dogs who followed you from room to room; she wandered off on her own to explore, and Alana found her snoozing in closets after having pulled down all of the sweaters, or rooting through the garbage, or tangled up in the shower curtain. The servants were too well trained to remark on it, but Alana had fits in their stead. She had fits over having servants at all, really, but the estate was too large to manage without them.

"You're a smart dog," Alana told her. "And you're bored. That's my fault. Maybe you need someone who can look after you better."

Applesauce glanced up at Alana and sniffed the ground.

"I think you liked it better when there was a pack," Alana said. "Other dogs you could play and run around with. And I think they liked you too." She tried to keep walking, but Applesauce had become fixated on one particular patch of grass, sniffing and sniffing. Alana wound the leash twice around her wrist and put her hands in her pockets. "But maybe I want my son--our son--to grow up with a dog," she murmured to herself. "A friend. A companion. A pet that he can feel some responsibility toward. An animal that he knows he won't eat."

Applesauce turned thirty degrees and squatted.

\-----

"Is it selfish?" Margot asked. They were nestled in bed together, white sheets rucked up around them like clouds, Margot's hand on Alana's belly, just under her navel. They hadn't made any announcement. Unlucky, before the end of the first trimester.

"Usually people say that _not_ having children is selfish," Alana replied. "Because you want a career, or to travel, and to not have to worry about someone else's needs and wants for a decade and a half."

"I wasn't thinking of someone else's needs and wants, when I did it," said Margot. "I was thinking, 'I want to get out.' If that isn't selfish, what is?"

Alana curled onto her side, so that she could face Margot. Margot's hand slid to her hip. "But you cried, when you held your son," she said. "You wanted to hold him even though he was dead."

Margot bit her lip. Moisture gathered at the bottoms of her eyes.

"Maybe it was selfish at first, when you started out," said Alana. "But it changed when it became real. That happens sometimes, not just with children. With love. Friendships. Careers." She put her hand on Margot's hip, so that they were mirrored. "But you _want_ the baby. That's more of a start in life than some people get."

Margot's lips contorted as she sneered and chuckled simultaneously. She gave a clogged sniff. "True."

Alana wondered if she'd said something wrong. She still didn't know much about Margot's past, about what her parents might have said to her. She'd heard a lot about Papa, but very little about Mama, which maybe told her something right there. But Margot's eyes, though red, no longer threatened to overflow.

"Is this real?" Margot asked.

"I'm so tired all the time that I almost fell asleep on the phone with my mother yesterday," said Alana. "And I haven't pooped in three days. So, yes."

Margot laughed and suddenly squeezed Alana tight. "What did I do to deserve you?" she said into Alana's neck.

Alana curled her arms around Margot's ribs. "I want you," she said. "And I want this. So. It's going to be okay."

\-----

Abigail was out in the fog, wearing a floral print dress with a cardigan over it. She had a hardcover book open in her hands, but she looked like a model posing for a stock photo: "young student in the early morning," perhaps, or "girl of the countryside". The peacocks circled around her in slow motion, long tails brushing the grass. Her cardigan was the same blue as their feathers.

The last time Alana had seen her, it'd been shortly before being pushed out a window. Abigail had looked young and frightened then, her face crumpled like a balled up tissue. Young and frightened, but not innocent.

"In Roman legend," Abigail said without looking up from her book, "Hera commemorated Argos Panoptes by preserving his hundred eyes in the peacock's fan."

"How did he die?" Alana asked.

"Does it matter?" Abigail shut her book. The peacocks continued to wander to and fro around her, necks arched.

Alana tried to remember, but she was distracted by the peacocks, the fog, the presence of Abigail. She felt like she was forgetting something besides how Argos Panoptes died. Maybe she was supposed to feed the peacocks? But what did peacocks eat?

Abigail tilted her head. "You don't know anything about me," she said. "But you want me to be good."

"I wanted you to be good," Alana corrected her. "But that's not what you turned out to be."

"How can you say that?" said Abigail. "It wasn't my fault. I was good. But I couldn't help who my father was. What my father was."

The shrill yowling of the peacocks outside roused Alana from slumber. Margot was curled around her back, her arms tucked up between them. Morning light slanted in through the gauzy curtains. Alana kept complaining that they were too light to be effective at blocking the sunlight, but Margot said that she was tired of living in darkness. The peacocks continued to cry. _Lee-yon, lee-yon! Mee-yon, mee-yon!_

Alana's bladder pinched. She groaned and scooted herself out of bed, and Margot made a small, bereft noise behind her. Alana ignored it as she shuffled into the bathroom.

When she returned, Margot was lying on her back with the duvet pulled up over her chest, staring at the ceiling.

"I've been trying to think of names for the baby," said Margot. "What do you think of Alan?"

" _No_." Alana crawled back into bed and pulled the duvet up to her chin.

"The trust is forcing you to take my name when we marry," said Margot. "I want him to have something of you."

"He's from my egg," said Alana. "He's taking all the nutrients from my food. He already has something of me."

"What about…" Margot flattened and then rounded her lips, shaping them around two silent syllables. "What about Morgan? That's like from both our names."

Alana put a hand over her belly. She tried it a few times, first in her head and then out loud. "I like it." And it worked for both a boy or a girl, but she didn't voice it for fear of making it true. They'd spent thousands and thousands of dollars, flying out to California and paying a doctor to select the sex of their embryo. Margot was so certain it'd worked. Alana had learned, by now, that the best laid plans could still be broken up like a raft on the sea.

\-----

"I don't know if I'm really the man you want for this," Jack said.

"You can say no, of course," said Alana. "But I really can't think of anyone better, and neither can Margot."

Jack sat for a long time with his hand over his mouth. When he took it away, his eyes were suspiciously red and damp. "Of course." His voice came out thick. He cleared his throat. "Of course I will. God. Me, a godfather." He smiled. "I'm gonna have a godson."

"Yes." Alana smiled back. "So don't disappear on me, Jack Crawford. You're going to have to stay in touch."

\-----

"I've been meaning to ask you," said Alana. "What's with the peacocks?"

Margot came to look over Alana's shoulder. They could see them from the front window, strutting and pecking at the grass. Alana had accepted them, in the same way she'd accepted falling in love with Margot and that Will Graham came with ten thousand dogs, but really. Why peacocks?

"They show up sometimes," Margot said. "I think a neighbor must have kept peacocks, and some of them escaped. Now there's a breeding population, or I guess so, because they've been around for years. Though I've never seen any chicks."

Alana let the curtain fall shut. "I tried to keep peacocks, as a teenager," she said. "Because I loved Flannery O'Connor. Turns out they're really stupid birds."

"Really?" said Margot. "Your parents let you keep peacocks?"

"I think they knew that I'd quickly give up the peacock thing," said Alana. "They thought it was better for me to make my own mistakes and learn from them."

Margot was quiet. Alana turned around to face her. Their faces were suddenly very close. Margot dropped her eyes. "How do you know this isn't a mistake?" Margot said to their laced hands.

"I don't," said Alana. "But I knew after talking to you for ten minutes that you deserved better than being chained to that deranged brother of yours, and I wanted to give you better. I still do."

Margot smiled, just a tiny twitch of the lips, and squeezed Alana's hands. "What happened to the peacocks, afterward?"

"We gave them to the arboretum," said Alana. "For all I know they're still there, squawking up a storm and being stupid."

\---end---

**Author's Note:**

> [coloredink.tumblr.com](http://coloredink.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [sumiwrites.wordpress.com](https://sumiwrites.wordpress.com/) (if you wanna see the books I've written)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [孔雀](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7375042) by [blacklight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacklight/pseuds/blacklight), [coloredink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coloredink/pseuds/coloredink)




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